


Royal Presents

by sunaddicted



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Flirting, Fluff and Crack, Gen, He's not amused, Hilarious, James Bond is the Grinch, MI6 Secret Santa, Pre-Slash, Q is a Brat, Q is a Holmes, The Queen is James' Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-10 14:45:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8921185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaddicted/pseuds/sunaddicted
Summary: Saying that James Bond wasn't a particularly big fan of Christmas would have been a pretty big understatement: he quite detested it, in fact, and tried to avoid anything to do with it - especially at work, which was the reason why he always requested to be sent out in the field, preferably in a country where Christmas wasn't celebrated.





	

_Royal Presents_

Saying that James Bond wasn't a particularly big fan of Christmas would have been a pretty big understatement: he quite detested it, in fact, and tried to avoid anything to do with it - especially at work, which was the reason why he always requested to be sent out in the field, preferably in a country where Christmas wasn't celebrated.

Of course, he had gone and gotten injured in Kenya and the vampires in Medical refused to clear him from active duty.

Bastards, the whole lot of them.

As if that wasn't enough, someone had organised an MI6 Secret Santa - James was secretly betting on the combined efforts of overenthusiastic Q-branchers and Eve's inner evil streak. No matter how much he begged to be left out of it and tried to bribe everyone to conveniently forget about him when it came to writing down names and tossing them in the metaphorical hat, the only answer he received was a scrap of paper - badly torn from a bigger sheet, its texture gritty and clearly made of recycled material if the grey-ish shade was anything to go by.

James still hadn't opened it: denial was his best friend and the cure for everything.

Along with alcohol - lots and lots of it.

Now that he was thinking about it, he did like something about Christmas: eggnog.

Sighing heavily, James dug the scrap of paper out of his suit jacket pocket; he wasn't a lucky man as a rule but maybe, for just once in his life, Fate had taken pity on him and paired him up with someone easy to shop for.

He bitterly chuckled alone in the middle of a corridor, only a security camera bearing testimony to his burst of tired hilarity; James winked at its blinking red eye, trusting Q to be observing him or to check the tapes later - he so loved irritating the boffin (it wasn't his fault that he looked damned cute when all riled up, was it? No, it wasn't)

When the paper crinkled in his hand - in a rather ominous way, to be honest - James' attention was focused back on the predicament at hand. He brought the piece of paper closer to his face, steeling himself before slipping his thumb in its fold and flicking it open: it wouldn't do showing any kind of uncontrolled emotion to Q's ever-seeing eyes. A deep breath and the few seconds necessary for the nervous impulse to travel from his brain to the muscle receptors later, James was staring down at a name written in a neat handwriting he wasn't familiar with.

Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor.

_Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor._

ELIZABETH ALEXANDRA MARY WINDSOR. 

It must have been a prank.

Surely.

James blinked down at the paper: the name hadn't changed, yet. If anything, the letters seemed to grow bolder the more his pupils raved over the too large and almost childish loops.

What the hell was he supposed to gift to a Queen?

"This is the worst Christmas of my life"

"You're so dramatic" Q chuckled from behind the agent, a mischievous smile already in place as he subtly made 007 jump in his tailored suit "It can't be worse than that time you were buried alive and left to slow cook in the desert of Saudi Arabia" he reminded the other rather smugly - and with reason; of course, it had been only thanks to his carefully designed trackers that MI6 had been able to find and rescue Bond.

James scowled at the reminder of that particular accident, while his brain automatically went over the list of his Top Ten Worst Possible Deaths - rather morbid, he was aware of that; dying buried alive ranked considerably low and it was barely on the list only for the reason why he hadn't decided yet whether dying by explosion would be worse "No, this is definitely the worst Christmas of my life" he confirmed "Spying on me again, Quartermaster?" he asked with a knowing smirk: there was no way that Q had happened to wander in a deserted corridor far away from his Branch.

"You wish" Q answered with a bright grin to cover up any telltale sign that would advertise that he was lying to someone who was trained to spot them like a ruthless bloodhound "I was just coming back from a meeting with Finance and guess what I had to explain to them?" he confidently spewed his rehearsed excuse.

"How is it that there's an ever expanding black hole in your budget?" James retorted, feigning ignorance: he very well knew that the Double-Ohs' antics - especially his own, admittedly - made it so that Q always had a bone to pick with the uptight pricks in Finance who wouldn't grant him more funds to his already expensive branch.

Q clasped his hands together, folding them under his chin in a way he was painfully aware that was reminiscent of his brother Sherlock "Exactly"

James closed the scrap of paper and slipped it back in his pocket before straightening his jacket "I'm sure you gave them a satisfactory explanation"

"Yes: your name" Q deadpanned; it might not have been true that he had just come out of a meeting, but he had argued with Finance often enough that he had no problems filling his voice with genuine irritation; his blood pressure, steadily climbing up, was reaching rather warning levels at the clear glee in those ice-blue eyes. That wouldn't do: he had come to annoy the agent and Q wasn't one to let a good chance to rile Bond up pass by "Finally discovered who's your Secret Santa, didn't you?"

Q was immediately rewarded by a darkening of Bond's face, which warmed him up with an admittedly twisted form of pleasure; he had no doubts Eve had a PowerPoint presentation specifically detailing how all his interactions with the agent could be reduced to pigtails pulling, better suited to a kindergarten playground rather than to the Secret Service. Not that Q cared about Eve's analysis of their interactions, not at all: he cared only about how hard he could metaphorically poke at Bond without getting hurt in the proceedings. 

"This is a weird way to take your revenge on me for all the equipment I destroyed, isn't it?" James glared, a part of his mind already scheming how to get back to the Quartermaster smugly walking away, hands thrust deep in his pockets and head tilted upwards as he whistled an annoyingly cheerful Christmas tune. 

* * *

Unashamedly, as soon as he arrived at home, James started googling the Queen of England in search of ideas; while his first instinct was to ignore the whole Secret Santa thing and leave the country for an impromptu holiday (hidden in a hole where not even Q could find him), James wasn't keen on offending the Queen or being charged with treason in some roundabout way. 

He had met her in the flesh once, for the Olympics commercial, but it wasn't as if they had even talked much beyond what had been written on the script: he didn't have any godlike insight of what she might want from life, apart from terrorist to leave England alone and financial stability for the country - but didn't anyone want that? Plus, he was already working towards the accomplishment of the first goal.

So, Google it was.

The Queen liked tailleurs, horrifying colours (mostly of the pastel variety, but she was known to have worn also a neon green that made James' eyes water with unshed tears), corgis (she had a cemetery just for the dogs... How creepy was that?), tea and an Italian thing called Condorelli (morsel-sized pieces of soft torrone, covered in flavoured chocolate - she clearly didn't have diabetes) that she regularly received from Italy.

Would it be distasteful if I gifted the Queen with a new corgi? I heard that one died. -JB

Extremely so. -EM  
Plus, Her corgis all have a royal pedigree and are descendants of the Original Corgis™. -EM

James tossed his mobile on the coffee table, a frisson of satisfaction going through his body when he imagined Q's face contorted in annoyance if he had witnessed his action, and sighed heavily: why people had to be so damned sensitive and picky? Couldn't the Queen just be happy with a new corgi?

Buying her a tailleur in a decent colour was ruled out too: it wouldn't do to indirectly insult her fashion sense.

And she already received the sweet Italian thing so, he couldn't make a quick stop to Italy to grab them.

What about a stack of completed paperwork? -JB

The Queen is your Secret Santa, not me or Q. -EM

James didn't text Eve further: the innuendo about who would have _really_ appreciated paperwork done hadn't been too subtle and he wasn't going to do it unless forced - aka, threatened with no missions until he made a consistent dent in the pile of unwritten reports on the messy desk of his unused office.

Going into hiding was looking more and more appealing, he had to admit.

James stood up after a leisure stretch and went to his well-stocked liquors cabinet, fingers closing around the neck of a bottle of scotch that was too old to be guzzled down like he wished he could do "Stop glaring at me like that" he reproached the ugly china bulldog staring at him: an heavy and eternal reminder of a woman he had respected and loved.

An eternal reminder....

"Thank you, M"

* * *

The following day, on the Queen's desk, there was a stuffed toy shaped as a corgi with a tastefully deep red bow around its neck.

Happy Christmas, your Majesty -007

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was fun and hilarious to write.  
> If you're wondering, I'm basically James Bond: not a christmassy person at all lol
> 
> Oh, the Condorelli thing is true - according to my dad.


End file.
